Integrated Public Value Creation through Community Initiatives—Evidence from Dutch Water Management

Publication

Publication

Social Science Journal
,
Volume 7
-
Issue 12
p. 1-
14

Governments are increasingly challenged by self-organizing community initiatives that
seek to contribute to or even take the lead in public value creation. The reason for citizen-led instead
of government-led public value creation is part of two larger governance trends. The first is the
increased specialized, mission-oriented approach to large social challenges by government agencies.
The second trend is the increased emphasis on accountability, productivity, and efficiency, following
the New Public Management philosophy. As a response to these trends, community initiatives
challenge the usual mechanisms, principles, and practices of government agencies. These initiatives
are characterized by more integrated and inclusive approaches for dealing with societal problems.
In turn, government agencies struggle with the way they can organize productive responses to the
initiatives communities take in creating public value. In this study, we explore the rationales behind
processes of public value creation in which communities take the lead. We explored these processes
in Dutch water management. In this highly functionally specialized domain, we compared two cases
in which communities take on leadership for integrated initiatives, including other societal functions
and tasks adjacent to water management.